Daily Pundits San Francisco Real-Estate Blog notes that Al Gore is moving to the City. Here’s some real-estate guy’s press release on the subject:

“Ever since people learned that Al and Tipper Gore were moving into the St. Regis, I’ve had three times as many inquiries about the place,” says Damion Matthews, a realtor specializing in San Francisco’s luxury condo market.

“There’s something about living near a person so powerful and important that really excites folks,” he says.

Maybe there is something about living near powerful and important folks, but what does that have to do with Al Gore?

Today’s Frisco Chronicle reports that the Animal Control and Welfare Commission is responding to last week’s tragedy by urging the city to require most evil, nasty pit bulls dogs to be spayed and neutered. The article also quotes Frisco P.D. Sgt. William Herndon as saying that aggressive animals brought before the city’s dog court are almost always unneutered males, as was one of the two dogs involved in last week’s tragedy.

The Commission categorically declined to recommend any new regulations targeting specific breeds, which commissioner Richard Schulke rightly warned would lead to “canine ethnic cleansing.” It also cites dog trainer Ron Cole (i.e., a guy who trains dogs, that is, not one who writes for the L.A. Dog Trainer) questioning whether the “pit bulls” involved in last week’s attack were pit bulls at all:

“The male certainly doesn’t look like a pit bull to me,” Cole said, noting that it more closely resembled an American bulldog.

The size of the dogs, roughly 80 pounds, is more consistent with them American Bulldogs than ordinary pit bulls, whose males normally range from 30 to 60 pounds. Still, the American Bulldog is a very close relative to the pit, and some may argue it’s a sub-breed of pit, so I have to wonder if the paraphrased portion of the above quote lost something in translation. I can’t imagine Cole would have said the male certainly doesn’t look like a pit bull but certainly does look like an American Bulldog.

If the dogs turn out not to be pit bulls after all, that sure isn’t going to look good for Frisco Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius, an anti-pit, anti-gun-owner fanatic who only three days earlier wrote this:

Then there’s the old “you-don’t-even-know-if-it-was-a-pit-bull” argument. These people argue that there are mixed pedigrees and blurred breeds. You can count on someone sending along a link to the “find the pit bull” Web site, where photos of dogs that look like pits are mixed with some who are hard to identify. You are supposed to take the test and then marvel at how hard it is to say which dogs are pits.

You know what? It isn’t that hard. Owners identify their dogs as pit bulls all the time. So do shelters. There are characteristics, we can recognize them, and those dogs have certain tendencies that are dangerous. It isn’t poor training or bad owners mistreating them (although that dramatically raises the likelihood of an attack). It is the breed.

Perhaps, so, if the “breed” is defined such that any dog who (1) is an unneutered male, or (2) attacks someone is considered a “pit bull,” by definition. Then the brainiac sinks even lower by claiming as fact that pit bulls have an uncharacteristically low tolerance for pain, when of course the opposite is true. [Imagine what a short fight it would be in the ring if the first dog to experience any pain were to yelp and submit.]

This Ass. Press account buries the lead/lede, and in fact leaves it out altogether, so here’s the real story:

Last spring, Frisco strongman mayor Gavin Newsom claimed his city was exempt from Sections 300, 301 and 308.5 of the California Family Code, which mandate the traditional definition of marriage througout the state. In December, his junta City Council proposed a handgun ban, in blatant violation of California’s preemption law, Section 53071 of the California Government Code, not to mention that embarassing Second Amendment.

This spring, they toyed with the idea of exempting themselves from the First Amendment, as well as Article 1, Section 2 of the California Cosntitution, by regulating blogs, though on this rare occasion, they ultimately backed down. Now, less than a month later, they’re moving on to yet another target: pit bulls.

“We have to be realistic,” Newsom said. “You’ve got dogs that literally can kill. We’ve seen it demonstrated. If we can’t change people’s behavior and make them think what’s in their best interest, then that’s when government comes along and becomes a bit paternalistic.”
[Emphasis added.]

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Frisco Chronicle columnist and token reasonable person Debra Saunders has a nice column today that fact-checks the meme equating gay marriage with civil rights, and Gavin Newsom’s government-sponsored crime with genuine acts of civil disobedience by private individuals who faced a real risk of criminal prosecution. Here’s the money quote (with certain expletives deleted):

But The Special City has long held a cheap view of civil disobedience. Remember last year’s anti-war demonstrators. They deliberately clogged city streets and blocked access to government buildings under the mantle of “civil disobedience”

Only one day after earning a medal for my role in a jihad on Frisco, I’m off to invade that city for the weekend. While there, I plan to do two things at City Hall (I won’t do them, of course, but for what it’s worth, I do plan to do them):

1. Dial 911, and report a crime in progress.
2. Obtain a marriage license for my dogs.

I mean, why not? It’s all about love, right?

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In the beginning, there was Section 300 of the California Family Code, which defined marriage as “personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman,” subject to certain other restrictions. Somehow, that “man and woman” stuff wasn’t quite clear enough for some people, so four years ago, Californians voted overwhelmingly to enact Proposition 22, which added a separate section to the Family Code (that would be Section 308.5, but who’s counting). That provision specifies that only a marriage between a man and and a woman is valid or recognized in California. This cleared things up for about 99.9% of the population,^* who now conceded that for better or worse, gay marriages were not legal in California.

Even most liberals (along with a few libertarians and conservatives) who voted against Proposition 22 understand that basic point. If Section 300 of the Family Code wasn’t clear enough to begin with, then surely Prop 22 was. However, they don’t seem to be too upset about the blatantly illegal “marriages” being performed up in Frisco right now. The prevailing attitude seems to be “Hey, if a city wants to perform fake marriages between two men, two women, three men and a dog, or any other combination not provided for under the Family Code, it’s no big deal. They’ll stop just as soon as an obviously conflicted judge finally gets around to telling them to do so, so in the meantime, what’s the fuss? It’s not as though they were commiting any crimes or anything, right?

Wrong. Here’s what Section 359 of the California Penal Code has to say on the matter:

Every person authorized to solemnize marriage, who willfully and knowingly solemnizes any incestuous or other marriage forbidden by law, is punishable by fine of not less than one hundred nor more than one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment in the County Jail not less than three months nor more than one year, or by both.

[Emphasis added.]

As ol’ Gavin might put it, “oops.” This Ass. Press article, roughly 2,600 illegal weddings have occurred in Frisco so far, and that’s already out of date. More are continuing as we speak, all with Mayor Newsom’s blessing. He and all the clerks solemnizing these bogus “marriages” had better pray to God (or Allah, or Vishnu, or whoever the hell else Friscans pray to these days) that his sentences are concurrent.

^*The other 0.1% includes Assemblyman Mark “I’m Not Jay!” Leno, who believes that the sentence “[o]nly marriage between a man and a woman is valid or
recognized in California” means “California won’t recognize out of state gay marriages but has no policy prohibiting gay marriages from being performed in state.” If you can explain the logic behind that, you’re smarter than I am, but then again, that’s to be expected now that I’ve been declared a moron by The Man Who Coined The Term “Blogosphere” (TM).

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh has more.

Frisco, CA has a long tradition of declaring jihad against the rest of the state. That city, together with the surrounding counties (commonly known as the Gay Area), is responsible for this state’s unenviable reputation as the land of fruits and nuts. In 1978, when property values were spinning out of control and citizens being literally taxed out of their own homes, Californians voted overwhelmingly to enact Prop 13. Frisco and the Gay Area voted against Prop 13, not for any of the technical reasons that make it semi-controversial today, but for the simple reason that they supported the basic idea of taxing people out of their own homes to keep a runaway government afloat. Four years later, in 1982, Frisco’s then-mayor Dianne Feinschwein, passed an illegal and unconstitutional ordinance which, if allowed to stand, would have prevented Frisco homeowners from lawfully defending themselves with handguns. Ten years later, the Gay Area played a pivotal role in sending both Ms. Feinschwein and that bitch,¹ Barbara Boxer of neighboring Moron County, to thwart the interests of the entire state of California by “representing” it in the U.S. Senate. Four years after that, when Californians voted overwhelmingly to do in 1996 what the U.S. Supreme Court should have done in 2003, Frisco’s then-mayor Willie Brown talked openly of secession. Seven years after that, in 2003, Frisco and the Gay Area voted overwhelmingly to an imbecile in office who, but for Frisco’s contribution, probably wouldn’t have been in office in the first place. Once again, Frisco residents and other Bay Aryans whined about how they were surrounded by idiots and didn’t want to live in California anymore. We still put up with it, barely.

Now, in 2004, Frisco’s brand new mayor, Gavin Newsom, is openly defying California law by authorizing the issue of bogus “marriage” licenses to couples who, under clearly established California, are not eligible to be married to one another. As far as I’m concerned, this is the last straw. If Frisco won’t abide by California law, the rest of us should not only allow them to secede, we should require them to do so. I see three possible strategies.

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